Thursday, March 11, 2010

Lindsey Vonn crashes in World Cup giant slalom, Tina Maze takes it

Lindsey Vonn is still in the overall World Cup lead, however her lead over Maria Riesch was cut today, 1571 to 1406. Lindsey crashed out of the giant slalom course early on, and may have injured her knee. She was able to ski down the rest of the course, but was clearly favoring it. We'll let you know her status when we have more info.

Maria Riesch had a strong race, ending up third on the podium, her second career podium in this discipline. Tina Maze took the vibes from her strong Olympic performances (two silver medals) into this race and took the top spot. This is her first win of the season. Coming in a close second was Germany's Kathrin Hoelzl.

"It was really close, I knew that already," Maze said after the race. "The course is really flat. It's easy to ski, you just had to attack. It's always close, the last races were so close. [Winning an Olympic medal] was my goal," Maze continued. "But this year I still [hadn't] won a race, so it's great to end the season like this. It couldn't be better."

Hoelzl won the GS overall (seen kissing the globe in the picture) - the first of her career - with 471 points, followed by Kathrin Zettel (ninth Thursday) with 394 points and Maze with 372.

Julia Mancuso didn't have enough overall or giant slalom points to compete today. She and Lindsey Vonn tied for 28th in the giant slalom standings, and they will both race in tomorrow's Super G (granted Lindsey didn't hurt her knee).